More Youtube Videos from The Audiophile Skeptics
Co-Hosted by Robert Brook
If you’re looking for a different take on the subjects we will be addressing with our new channel, we happily offer them for your viewing edification and pleasure.
If you would like to know more about audio and records, please feel free to ask any questions you have in the comments section, or send them directly to me at tom@better-records.com.
And whatever you do, stay skeptical.
Further Reading
Hot Stamper Pressings of Soul, Blues, R&B, etc. Available Now
The MoFi is thick, fat and murky, with much less transparency than the Classic release (which is no award winner either).
The typical album MoFi remastered on Anadisq suffered from many or most of the long list of shortcomings you see below. If you want to avoid records with these faults, you would be well advised to stay away from any of the records we’ve linked to.
Is this the worst sounding pressing of Folk Singer ever made?
That’s hard to say. But it is the worst sounding version of the album we’ve ever played, and that should be fair warning for any audiophile contemplating spending money on this kind of Heavy Vinyl trash.
Further Reading
This killer copy shows you just how good this record can sound, which is surprisingly good, considering how many copies of the album are just plain awful. Finally, most of the grit, grain, and transitory opacity have fallen away, leaving in its place the rich, full-bodied and Tubey Magical 70s sound one would expect.
As obvious as it may sound (especially to anyone on this site), the master tape is a whole lot better than the average copy of the record would have you believe. This copy is proof positive. Without a doubt this is one of the best pressings of the album we have ever heard.
The better copies take top honors for rhythmic energy and real frequency extension both high and low. Most copies have no real top end; if you own one give it a listen and we think you’ll agree with us.
Great bass, plenty of Tubey Magic, clarity and richness — practically no other copy in our shootout could do what this one was doing.
More of the Music of Judy Collins
And there’s not much you can do about it.
Both Sides Now, the Top Ten hit that finally put Judy on the map, is clearly made from a copy tape and doesn’t sound as good as the songs that follow it on side two. Hey, it happens, and I suspect it happens more often than most audiophiles think. I would wager that back in the day most people who bought this album never even noticed.
One thing I’ve noticed about audiophiles over the years is that they’re pretty much like most people.
The difference of course is that they call themselves audiophiles, and audiophiles are supposed to care about sound quality.
They may care about it, but are they capable of evaluating high quality sound? What is the evidence for the affirmative in this proposition?
Are they actually capable of critical listening?
Do they listen critically enough to notice a dubby track on an otherwise good sounding record when they hear it?
Or dubby sound in general?
Or to notice that one side of a record often sounds very different from another?
Or that some reissues sound better than the originals of the album?
Hot Stamper Pressings on Decca and London Available Now
UPDATE 2026
This was our take on the record way back in 1998 when we first started to carry it. This is our current favorite performance on record, but of course we prefer the vintage pressings of the recording as they clearly sound better. We prefer the best Decca pressings, but the Londons can be quite good as well, just not as good. In other words, they can’t win shootouts, but they will easily beat whatever other pressing you may have of the recording. (More on Decca Vs. London here.)
This is one of the better Speakers Corner Deccas. When they released this title on Heavy Vinyl in 1998, it became one of the few Speakers Corner classical recordings we carried and recommended.
We knew it sounded good, but up until recently [recently being 2010 or so], when we started collecting and playing the better vintage Deccas and Londons, we sure didn’t know it could sound as good as the best of those pressings do.
Below are some thoughts from a recent classical listing that we hope will shed light on our longstanding aversion to the sound of these modern remasterings.
Transparency
What is lost in these newly remastered recordings? Lots of things, but the most obvious and bothersome is TRANSPARENCY.
Modern records are just so damn opaque. We can’t stand that sound. It drives us crazy. Important musical information — the kind we hear on even second-rate regular pressings — is simply nowhere to be found. That audiophiles as a group — including those that pass themselves off as champions of analog in the audio press — do not notice these failings does not speak well for either their equipment or their critical listening skills.
It is our contention that no one alive today is capable of making records that sound as good as the vintage ones we sell.
UPDATE 2025
The guy who cut this pressing at some point this century did a great job — it sounds like a vintage record, and better than any of the vintage pressings of the title we have ever played — but we don’t know who it is because he wasn’t credited on the jacket for his mastering!
Perhaps we should be more clear and say that it is the Big Name mastering engineers who can’t seem to cut a good record these days,
Once you hear our Hot Stamper pressings, those 180 gram records you own may never sound right to you again. They sure don’t sound right to us, but we are in the enviable position of being able to play the best properly-cleaned older pressings (reissues included) side by side with the newer ones.
This allows the faults of the current reissues to become much more recognizable, to the point of actually being quite obvious. When you can hear the different pressings that way, head to head, there really is no comparison. (more…)
